We catch up after a short break, recap Roast Retreat 2026 in Detroit, run through a wave of new coffees currently at Mundos, and share details on the Fermentation Project.

Fermentation Box Set: https://www.mundosroastingco.com/coffee/p/fermentation-box-set

James Hoffmann Fermentation Project Video: https://youtu.be/Iq34gq2ihMk?si=B3W4Q_zYt2HF2jH5

Podium Coffee Club: https://tidd.ly/4qo2NCs

0:00 The Fermentation Project

0:33 Intro

4:43 What We're Drinking

8:20 Coffee Bag Design Talk

12:21 Roast Retreat 2026 Recap

20:30 What's New at Mundos

22:31 Tangent: Why Cold Drinks Taste Sweeter

32:37 Rabbit Hole

43:39 What is The Fermentation Project?

53:44 Box Set, Tasting Event

59:22 Outro

We tackle one of coffee's most argued-about habits: rinsing your paper filter before you brew. Through a series of taste tests, we try to figure out whether it actually changes anything in the cup, or if it's just something we all do out of habit.

Do you rinse your paper filter before brewing?

0:00 Intro

1:23 Does Rinsing Your Filter Matter? 

3:19 Setting Up Test 

6:56 Tasting the Rinse Water 

12:19 Do Different Filters Change the Outcome? 

15:17 Does Pre-Wetting Affect Filtration? 

17:01 Hot Rinse vs Cold Rinse 

24:42 What We're Drinking 

32:00 Brewing the Real Test 

41:56 Blind Taste Test: V60 

47:26 Round Two: Kalita 

54:20 What Actually Caused the Difference?

Gabe Boscana has spent 26 years in specialty coffee, from barista at Gimme! Coffee to National Roasting Manager at Intelligentsia, Green Coffee Director at Sightglass, founder of his own roastery Máquina, and now Green Coffee Buyer at Bellwether Coffee. In this episode, we sit down with Gabe to talk about what it really means to buy green coffee, why the C-Market doesn't tell the full story, and what cafe owners need to understand about where their coffee actually comes from. One of the more honest conversations we've had on this show.

0:00 Intro 

0:57 Gabe's 26-Year Career in Specialty Coffee 

3:19 What Drew Gabe to Green Coffee Buying 

12:06 The Real Impact of Fair Prices on Farmers 

16:58 Should Roasters Rename Coffees to Make Them Marketable? 

22:11 Curating Bellwether's Coffee Marketplace 

35:06 Why Coffee Costs What It Costs 

42:43 How the Rising C-Market Affected Quality 

48:56 What New Roasters Underestimate 

59:04 What Cafe Owners Should Understand About Green Coffee 

59:46 If Gabe Could Change One Thing About Pricing 

Batch espresso scares us. Not because it's bad, but because what if it's actually good? 

When Valor Coffee posted that they were testing batch espresso, it got us thinking about the "shots die" rule and whether any of that actually holds up in a blind taste test.

We get into the tradeoffs, the perception problem on the cafe side, and what you're really giving up when you pull the barista further from the drink. 

What We're Drinking: https://www.mundosroastingco.com/coffee/p/colombia-cesar-ledesma-pink-bourbon

Say hi: [email protected]

equalpartscoffee.com

00:00 Intro

02:29 What We're Drinking

10:14 Valor Coffee

11:35 The Batched Espresso Dillemma

13:44 Blind taste test

16:00 First Attempt

20:15 Round 2

22:52 Results

27:31 Batch Espresso vs. Cold Brew Concentrate

32:03 Speed, Quality, Perception

34:20 The Barista Experience

37:39 Wrap Up

Meraki Gen 2: https://tidd.ly/4ukKTDh

Podium Coffee Club: https://tidd.ly/4qo2NCs

We got our hands on the Meraki Gen 2 espresso machine and have been using it daily. Built-in grinder, dual boiler, integrated scales for both grinding and brewing. On paper it has everything. In this episode we share our honest first impressions, break down what makes it stand out, and compare it to other machines in the same price range. Meraki sent us this machine but did not sponsor this video. Full review coming soon.

0:00 Intro

1:33 Are We Espresso or Milk?

6:33 Podium Coffee Club

7:07 What We're Drinking

8:21 Potato Defect Tangent

9:40 Tasting the Coffee

10:50 Meraki Gen 2

13:08 Ease of Use & Build Quality

14:02 What's Included in the Box

16:06 Meraki vs ES1

18:10 Built-In Grinder

19:35 Integrated Scales

25:10 Dual Boiler Benefits

29:09 Steam Wand Performance

33:10 Temperature Probe & Auto-Stop Feature

39:04 Menu Settings & Customization

41:51 Pre-Infusion Settings

43:39 The Car Analogy: Where Does the Meraki Fit?

45:21 Who Is This Machine For?

47:04 What's Coming Next

Morgan Eckroth: 2022 US Barista Champion, content creator, and Onyx Coffee Lab team member, sits down with us for an honest conversation about what it takes to compete at the highest level of coffee, how she builds signature drinks from scratch, and why hospitality is the thing she cares about most.

Find Morgan at @morgandrinkscoffee on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, and on Substack at Coffee for Here.

0:31 Introductions

1:41 What We're Drinking

4:33 Who is Morgan Eckroth?

7:40 What is the US Barista Championship?

10:03 How Morgan Prepares for Competition

12:17 Bringing Competition Drinks to Cafes

14:06 Coffee Meets Cocktail Culture

16:49 Morgan's Creative Process

20:20 Culinary Influences in Coffee

21:29 Widening the Lens Beyond Coffee

22:44 From Barista to Career

24:10 When Coffee Became More Than a Job

25:55 Making Competition Accessible

27:40 The Power of Coffee Community

29:46 Advice for Aspiring Competitors

33:39 Defining Your Own Success

34:53 Morgan's Favorite Drink

37:44 Savory & Umami in Coffee

40:31 Fostering Creativity in Your Cafe

42:30 Barista League & Lowering Barriers

43:47 How to Start Preparing Now

45:25 The Future of Specialty Coffee

47:18 The Importance of Hospitality

49:19 Where to Find Morgan

Fellow Espresso Series 1: https://fellow.sjv.io/series-1

We've had some time with the Fellow ES1. Enough to move past first impressions and actually talk about it. In this episode we get into everyday home use, steaming, shot consistency, the price conversation, and where we think home espresso is heading.
☕️ What We're DrinkingColombia Finca El Chaferote II from Prodigal Coffee RoastersAiden Profile: https://brew.link/p/8jC2

Firmware video: https://youtu.be/2CS3TP-9aBE?si=Gv7b46Kch5plRh4c

0:00 - Open

1:12 - Intro

2:53 - What We're Drinking

7:24 - Owning the ES1

8:35 - Milk Steaming

10:33 - Full-size steam wand & drip tray thoughts

13:04 - Shot-to-shot consistency at home

15:18 - Why the ES1?

18:43 - App Integration Ideas

19:26 - The Bluetooth Lever Tangent

22:17 - Rabbit Hole

26:16 - Features we want to see fixed/added

27:30 - The hidden hot water spout.

33:46 - Who should (and shouldn't) buy this machine

38:33 - The home espresso grinder gap

41:22 - Fellow Opus 2 first thoughts

46:03 - Where home espresso is heading

49:34 - Outro

Nick Terzulli didn't set out to reinvent home espresso. He started with a latte at Sightglass, a honeymoon in Barcelona, and a medical engineering background he couldn't stop applying to coffee problems. Now, as VP of R&D at Fellow, he's the person behind one of the most talked-about espresso machines to hit the market in years — the Espresso Series 1.

In this episode, Nick breaks down the boosted boiler architecture that makes the Series 1 tick, why shot-to-shot consistency has been the white whale of home espresso, and how building the Aiden brewer laid the foundation for everything that came after. He also gets into burr design, why unimodal isn't always better, and what it actually takes to bring a product from a blank piece of paper to thousands of people's countertops.

Find Nick: Instagram: @nicholasnumbers LinkedIn: Nicholas Terzulli

Equal Parts Coffee is a podcast about the people, gear, and ideas shaping specialty coffee. New episodes drop every other week. Subscribe so you don't miss one.

0:00 Intro

0:40 Welcome & Guest Introduction

1:14 What Nick Does at Fellow

1:53 How Nick Got Into Specialty Coffee

3:30 From Coffee Lover to Coffee Engineer

8:24 First Espresso Machine

9:42 Was Espresso Always in Fellow's Roadmap?

17:17 How Aiden Influenced Series 1

18:40 The Boosted Boiler Explained

21:39 The Challenge of 120V Home Espresso

22:17 Designing Three Machines

24:06 Fellow's Growth as a Company

27:22 Series 1 Dev Time

34:44 For the Casual Home Barista

38:21 Designing for Everyone

41:38 Shot-to-Shot Consistency

44:40 Reliability & Longevity

48:21 Repairability & Refurbishment Facility

54:19 Unimodal vs Bimodal Grind Distribution

57:41 The Hardest Thing Nick Has Done

1:02:08 Rapid Fire

1:06:27 Wrap Up & Where to Find Nick

Tea in a specialty coffee cafe, should you even bother? In Episode 33, we dig into one of the more overlooked questions in cafe ownership: how (and whether) to build out a tea program without letting it pull focus from the coffee that brought people in the door.

We cover matcha: its place on the menu, how to source it, and the case for and against batching. Why a bad tea experience can quietly damage your reputation just as much as a bad espresso.

If you're opening a cafe, already running one, or just really passionate about what goes across the bar, this one's for you.

We are drinking Colombia Buesaco from Jack's roastery Mundos Coffee - www.mundosroastingco.com

00:00 Intro

03:00 What We're Drinking

07:43 Should Cafes Offer Tea?

10:55 Finding Your Cafe's Philosophy

13:25 How Mundos Built Its Tea Program

18:13 Types of Tea a Cafe Can Offer

21:01 Matcha's Place in the Cafe

26:08 Getting Creative with Matcha

30:07 Choosing the Right Matcha Grade

38:46 Batching Matcha: Pros & Cons

47:37 The Cold Water Matcha Method

52:16 Iced Teas & Seasonal Drinks

56:38 Loose Leaf Tea Essentials

1:00:34 Wrap-Up & Final Thoughts

Podium Coffee Club - https://tidd.ly/4qo2NCs

Co-fermentation has exploded in the coffee industry. Farmers are fermenting coffee with fruits, hops, and exotic yeasts to create wild new flavors. Some see it as innovation that helps farmers add value to their crops. Others see it as a shortcut that's damaging the pursuit of natural coffee excellence.

The debate got real when Best of Panama 2024 outright banned all co-fermented and infused coffees from competition. So what's really going on? Is this the future of specialty coffee, or are we losing something important? We break down co-fermentation vs infusion, the farmer economics, competition implications, and our honest take after tasting dozens of these experimental coffees.

We're drinking Colombia Galaxy Hops Co-ferment from Freelance Coffee. - freelancecoffeeproject.com

Want to experience award-winning coffees like the one we're drinking in this episode? Podium Coffee Club is a monthly subscription that sends you coffees exclusively from roasters who've won championships and competitions. Every coffee has been recognized for excellence, so you're guaranteed something special each month. It's how we discover incredible roasters we might never find otherwise. Sign up using our link and support the podcast

https://tidd.ly/4qo2NCs

Let us know what's your take on co-ferments? Are you team innovation or team purist? 👇

0:00 Industry Standards

0:31 What We're Drinking

3:38 Podium Coffee Club

8:04 What Is Co-Fermentation?

10:03 Fermentation Refresher

21:00 Co-Fermentation vs. Infusion

27:37 Pros & Cons

38:12 Consumer Perspective & Transparency

42:44 Co-Ferments in Competition

44:46 Purist Philosophy & Industry Direction

53:47 Listener Questions